Advances in Marine Ecosystem Modelling Research

Published: 16 August 2017

The AMEMR (Advances in Marine Ecosystem Modelling Research) Conference brings the international ecosystem modelling community together in Plymouth.

Organised by a team at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) including Jorn Bruggeman, Icarus Allen and Jess Heard from MERP, AMEMR takes place every three years providing an opportunity to present, discuss and learn about a wide variety of marine modelling challenges, methods, applications and outcomes.

AMEMR has a strong focus on the state-of-the-art and articulating future challenges. It also promotes interdisciplinary discussion among stakeholders and modelling, observational and experimental scientists and students who want to contribute to the conceptualisation, design, development and application of improved and new marine ecosystem models.

This year was one of the biggest conferences to date with 150 scientists coming together to share their latest research and achievements. MERP was well represented at AMEMR with Programme Leader Paul Somerfield sitting on the Scientific Steering Committee and 14 scientists from across the programme attending the conference. Four MERP scientists spoke at the conference with Mike Heath (University of Strathclyde) talking in the 'Making an Impact' session about modelling the whole ecosystem impacts of trawling, along with Mike Spence (University of Sheffield) discussing dynamic multi-model ensemble for ecosystem simulators. Sevrine Sailley (PML) spoke about zooplankton diversity modelling and combining size and trait-based approaches and Jason Holt (National Oceanography Centre) presented his work on biogeochemical implications of potential future changes in shelf sea circulation. Examples of presentations given at AMEMR 2017 are available to download at www.amemr.com.

The conference also included regular discussion sessions, breakfast mentoring sessions at which Shelia Heymans (Scottish Association for Marine Science) was one of the senior mentors and an afternoon of workshops. The MERP ERSEM team (Jorn Bruggeman, Sevrine Sailley and Gennadi Lessin) ran a very successful hands-on modelling session, giving delegates a chance to manipulate and play with the latest sample version of the ERSEM model.

The conference had over 80 posters, which were displayed throughout the conference and highlighted during an evening poster session. 5 of those posters presented work achieved through MERP and overall, AMEMR 2017 provided an excellent opportunity for MERP scientists to share their work and network with the broader marine modelling community.

The next AMEMR will take place in 2020. We hope to see many of you there!